What’s a Quiz Team?

Members of the quiz team at practice listen to the questions until they think they have an answer and buzz in. The quiz team has been going strong under the direction of Mrs. Krista Torpey for three years. Senior Victoria Oswald said, "I like quiz team. It’s good practice for if I ever get on Jeopardy, because I’d love to win some money playing that.”

Members of the quiz team at practice listen to the questions until they think they have an answer and buzz in. The quiz team has been going strong under the direction of Mrs. Krista Torpey for three years. Senior Victoria Oswald said, "I like quiz team. It’s good practice for if I ever get on Jeopardy, because I’d love to win some money playing that.”

Members of the quiz team at practice listen to the questions until they think they have an answer and buzz in. The quiz team has been going strong under the direction of Mrs. Krista Torpey for three years. Senior Victoria Oswald said, "I like quiz team. It’s good practice for if I ever get on Jeopardy, because I’d love to win some money playing that.”

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The Pottsville Quiz Team is one of the school’s best kept secrets. If you’ve ever seen a trivia show like Jeopardy, you already have an idea of what they do. Quiz team matches are like trivia competitions; someone will read questions about random topics, and whenever someone answers a question correctly, his or her team scores points. The topics can range wildly from literature to mathematical concepts and everything in between. No subject is off limits during a quiz team match.

Mrs. Krista Torpey, the Quiz Team advisor, said “I have enjoyed coaching the quiz team for the past three seasons. We practice after school at least once a week, and it is a great opportunity for students to showcase their knowledge in a competitive forum. Pottsville Area High School competes on the varsity and JV level, and we have the opportunity to play against thirteen teams across Schuylkill County. I am proud of our student’s success this year, and we currently rank third in the county. There are two matches to go, and we are working hard to prepare. We anticipate a strong finish to the season.”

The way the questions are asked can be quite confusing to those who aren’t used to hearing them. They take something simple, like a person or a concept, and stretch it out into a paragraph of vaguely related things that string together just enough for someone to buzz in and and guess what it is. There are two ways that questions are asked in a quiz team match. There are the normal questions as described before, and there is the fanfare section. During the fanfare, the reader will give six questions, and the whole team is given a chance to discuss the answers and guess, although they only have sixty seconds for each. The other team sits patiently until it is their turn for the fanfare.

Just like most sports, quiz team has a varsity level and a junior varsity level. The Varsity members are the ones who play in the real matches, while the JV students practice with the other JV teams in another room. During quiz team matches, all of the questions will be the same for both varsity and JV, but only the score from the varsity matches will matter.

Senior Victoria Oswald said, “I like quiz team. It’s good practice for if I ever get on Jeopardy, because I’d love to win some money playing that.”

On January 8, the quiz team hosted a match against North Schuylkill and Shenandoah. Junior Eli Brennan said, “We won on all fronts. Varsity beat Shenandoah 135 to 70 and we beat North Schuylkill. JV won their first game by a lot, and they won their second game too.”